


the edifice of human destiny (peace and rest at last)

by cthchewy



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Bad Ending, Biological Warfare, Character Study, F/F, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Black Eagles Route, Gen, Human Experimentation, Hurt No Comfort, I'm serious EVERYONE DIES, Mental Health Issues, Plague, Post-Black Eagles Route (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Rocks Fall Everyone Dies, Tragedy, Trauma, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:01:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24435547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cthchewy/pseuds/cthchewy
Summary: She doesn’t know exactly when the voices begin.  It’s in that liminal space while she’s still trapped down there in the underground, time and senses blurred, her environment only shifting between dull gray cell and sterile white operating room – locked or strapped down, hands clenched around cool metal bars or nails digging into her own palms as her whole body spasms in its bindings.  Perhaps it’s then, when her brothers and sisters in the next cells over cease their cries, that Edelgard’s mind first cracks in that small way and conjures up their sobbing and their wails so that at least she won’t be alone.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd & Edelgard von Hresvelg, Edelgard von Hresvelg & Claude von Riegan, Edelgard von Hresvelg/My Unit | Byleth
Comments: 9
Kudos: 35





	the edifice of human destiny (peace and rest at last)

Claude kneels before her, bloody and bruised. His face is so swollen from the fall that took him out of the battle that he can barely open his eyes. Derdriu has been captured and his forces surrendered, though many of his generals had to be forcefully restrained.

Hilda kneels beside him, her angry tears dripping into the dirt. “You monster! Monster!” she screams, over and over, even as her voice grows hoarse. “We did nothing to you, we were neutral, why did you invade us!”

The others – their former classmates, Alliance troops, the _foreign_ troops Claude had somehow mustered – the others stand watching, some weeping, some stoic, some gagged to prevent them from yelling as Hilda does. When her shouts quiet into sobs, Edelgard looks over them all. Her cool gaze sweeps across the gathered crowd.

“From this moment on, the coalition of rogue provinces calling itself the Leicester Alliance is no more. These lands shall return to being governed by the Adrestian Empire to which it has belonged since time immemorial. _You_ are the invaders; _you_ are the usurpers. And today you have failed. We are here to reclaim what is ours by right, and to return Fodlan to the golden era of prosperity!”

The Imperial forces cheer and thump their spears. “Long live the Emperor!” “Unify Fodlan!”

Claude has been silent since his plea failed. That he even asked leaves a bad taste in her mouth. Why fight at all, if you’re only going to surrender in the end? If his ambitions were truly as strong as hers, as she once thought in their academy days, he wouldn’t have rolled over like this. He wouldn’t have lured the Imperial forces directly to his location without other battles to whittle down their numbers. For all his prowess in strategy games, in the end he seemed to forget: a king does not sacrifice itself for the pawns. How strong can his ambitions be if he’s not willing to shed innocent blood for them?

While their ideals are not so different in alignment, the lengths to which they are willing to go wind up being very different. Perhaps it’s something to be respected, that Claude places such value on his companions’ lives. Perhaps it’s something to be scorned. At least the bloodshed was minimal, though it could have been _none_ if Claude had only chosen not to fight in the first place. If only he had run like he was so fond of doing in their academy days.

“Any last words, Duke Riegan?”

“Please… spare my people. They’ll stand down,” he says to them as much as to her. “I entrust them to you.”

Edelgard nods, though she doubts he can see it. “I’ve already agreed to it.”

“Please, please, Hilda too. Spare her too. I’m the one who planned everything, I’m the only one to blame.”

The begging is unseemly. Still, she says, “It is honorable of you to take responsibility. I’m sorry I cannot promise it, but take solace in the knowledge that no others will come to harm for the crimes of you and your retainer. I will give Hilda the choice. Goodbye.”

“Hilda--”

She lifts Aymr and slices cleanly down his neck. His body slumps, his head rolls. Blood pools on the dirt below. Claude’s last command to his retainer is lost, whatever it would have been.

The screaming and sobbing reignites. Hilda calls for Claude over and over again, and it’s that loyalty which has doomed her. If she had abandoned her post as they learned Claude had ordered, she, too, would be spared. But as Edelgard sees it now, Hilda’s loyalty to Claude is as Hubert’s is to her, and she knows Hubert would stop at nothing to avenge her if she died.

Edelgard moves to place Aymr’s bloodied blade at Hilda’s neck. She stills, breath hitching, limbs trembling in fear and anger.

“I commend your loyalty, Hilda of House Goneril, but an example must be made for those who think they can continue to resist. Will you submit to the Empire? It was the last request of your lord.”

“ _Fuck_ you.”

“So be it. Any last words?”

And it’s a mistake to ask, Edelgard realizes as soon as the words come out. Hilda turns around as far as her bindings will allow. Claude’s blood on the axe grazes her cheek. She glances up at Edelgard, then spits on the emperor’s armored boot. “You’ll _pay._ ”

Aymr comes down once more.

“Have her body sent home,” Edelgard commands. “Let her brother know that her continued rebellion left us no choice.”

There are others they could make examples of, but they’re too cowardly or don’t have the means to rally troops to their cause, so for them mercy is possible.

To rule effectively, one must balance love and fear. That is something Claude never understood, and because of that he would not have made a good king. His words as he was captured ring in her mind. “Right until the very end, I’ve read this whole thing terribly wrong.” He seemed so sure of the rest of his plan, in absolving his people of blame if he failed. What was it that he read wrong? She wonders what he meant by that.

* * *

She doesn’t know exactly when the voices begin. It’s in that liminal space while she’s still trapped down there in the underground, time and senses blurred, her environment only shifting between dull gray cell and sterile white operating room – locked or strapped down, hands clenched around cool metal bars or nails digging into her own palms as her whole body spasms in its bindings. Perhaps it’s then, when her brothers and sisters in the next cells over cease their cries, that Edelgard’s mind first cracks in that small way and conjures up their sobbing and their wails so that at least she won’t be alone.

That’s what scares her more than anything, being alone as death encroaches. More than the rats, more than the endless depths of the open ocean, more than being bound and helpless. As long as her siblings are with her, she’ll survive. It might not be the same for them, but she tries her best to comfort them in their last moments. She calls out, “It’s El. I’m still here. Don’t worry, I’m with you. It’ll be okay, I’m with you.” Over and over she chants it so they don’t go into the dark alone. Her voice is always with them if they choose to listen, and so their voices, too, accompany her throughout the internment and linger long after her rational mind knows they’ve died or gone mad.

Edelgard was ninth in line for the throne before the experiments. In Adrestia, oldest and greatest nation of Fodlan – no, the _only_ legitimate nation of Fodlan – different laws apply for emperors. They’re allowed as many consorts as they like. They’re encouraged, even, to make concubines of a dozen or more pretty noblewomen in the hopes of spawning as many Crest-bearing children as possible. One of them will be heir, after all. It’s best to have many candidates to choose from.

Months later, she’s the only one left. Out of eleven siblings, ten are gone. No one in the imperial household had thought to train her for the crown until then.

There has never been a female Emperor or even crown princess before Edelgard, though no law expressly forbids it. It’s simply that women are limited by their biology in producing at most one child per year, and it is difficult to rule an Empire while also playing broodmare.

Her father’s enemies made a mistake when they didn’t just marry her off to the likes of Ferdinand. They could have had him crowned and controlled instead, but when they allowed those who slither in the dark to take her and all her siblings, they brought about their own demise.

Edelgard shatters all their plans like the crunch of bone beneath her axe. Her siblings call for justice, and she delivers.

* * *

Dimitri is killed in battle, the greatest honor for a knight of Faerghus. He resists too much for Edelgard to call for his capture and later execution, so she cuts him down when it’s clear she has won their fight. Areadbhar is taken to be shown as proof of his demise when they reach Fhirdiad. It would have been shown here, but there is no one left to see it. The knights choose death over surrender, each and every one.

What happened to Dimitri… is unfortunate. Seeing him fall so deeply for the lies of the church and Thales’ machinations… Seeing him become the sort of mindless tyrant who ruled only by fear… It was a mercy kill, the butchering of a feral animal. She doesn’t regret it, can’t _allow_ herself to regret it.

Strangely enough, it’s as he falls that she remembers meeting him as a child. The memory flashes before her eyes, and for a moment she sees him as he was, once, when he was whole. Images of him as a child, of dancing together at the royal ball and playing together in fields of flowers, mix with memories of their happy academy days.

It was hard back then, not to take the hand he extended to her multiple times. He was so bright and full of promise, and in another life, another timeline where the church hadn’t orchestrated the Faerghus region’s rebellion and planted the delusion in House Blaiddyd’s mind that they were fit to rule, he could have been a great and loyal duke of the Empire. He could have been the best of them, the greatest of lords.

In the aftermath of the battle, the plains are littered with the corpses of men and beasts alike all because the bull-headed chivalry of the knights demanded they fight to the death for honor. It’s so senseless, so meaningless.

Claude comes to stand beside her as she watches over it all. “I thought you weren’t a fan of my tactics. ‘Why even fight if you won’t finish it’ or something like that. That’s what you thought of me. Now you’re upset at Dimitri for _not_ backing down? Admit it, my way was better.”

She sighs, as exasperated with him in death as she was in life. “Fine. Your way was better. Marginally so. Though you never should have fought at all.”

His brows draw together in the way they always did in the academy. It’s a condescending look she’s always hated, and one that he’d always donned when they argued politics. “C’mon, princess, are you serious? No nation would just roll over like that upon being invaded. Clearly the only choice is to fight, and clearly it’s better to surrender when loss is imminent than to have… _this_.” He waves his arm across the scene of utter carnage.

“Yes, you’re right,” she says. The point is valid, except for one detail. “Perhaps if it were Brigid or Dagda, or _Almyra_ , I would be in the wrong to expect compliance. However, Faerghus and Leicester have never been proper nations, only territories governed by delusional nobles manipulated into rebellion by a false church led by beasts wearing human skins. What you call invasion, history will remember as liberation. I’ve already admitted you made the right choice in surrendering, isn’t that enough for your ego?”

“Ooh, a backhanded compliment! Eh, I’ll take it. Thanks, princess. Would’ve been nicer if you didn’t kill me though,” Claude says. “We could’ve been friends. Our _nations_ could’ve been friends.”

“Yes, and I suppose I’d have to be the one to eradicate whatever Almyran superstitions and religious nonsense are holding them back? I don’t believe you could have done it, loathe as you were to shed even a drop of blood, in the end. I can scarcely believe it. All that talk of poisoning the enemy’s wells in our school days, a bluff!”

“Well you’ll never know now!”

She waves him away. “Oh, shut up.”

He disappears, but Edelgard finds it difficult to fall asleep that night. The voices of her deceased siblings ring in her mind. She remembers how they screamed in the cells around her, cries growing softer one by one until there was silence. And she remembers how, in that silence, she used to be comforted by the thought that at least she had friends outside, somewhere, in the sunlight. She used to think of Hubert and Dimitri coming to save her, for weren’t they her brothers too, in a way?

It’s not doubt about her path and actions. She won’t allow it to be. It’s just that… Dimitri deserved better than to die a mere shell of a man. The fault for that lays entirely with the church and with those who slither.

* * *

Rhea is a _monster_. She deserves everything that happens to her for her lies. For once, killing brings Edelgard some semblance of joy, for Rhea is not human, and with her death humanity is freed from the children of the goddess. Liberated once more, as the King of Liberation did a thousand years before.

Before, when they cut down Seteth and Flayn, many of the Black Eagles Strike Force expressed remorse, because even though they too were deceitful children of the goddess, inhuman beasts in disguise, their false faces were expertly crafted. Seeing their expressions as they fell, it would have been easy for anyone not in the know to think they were as capable of love as any human family. But Rhea, Seiros, the Immaculate One – she showed everyone the monstrous truth in the end. The wretched _beast_ that dared rule over humanity for a millennium is finally gone.

The Kingdom crumbles, the church crumbles, and in their ashes a new faith will rise, with new teachings. Faith in a united Empire, and in the united power of humankind.

The new society will be classless. Crests will mean nothing. The nobles who join her must pledge to transition their estates into meritocratic seats of government, which their children will only inherit if they meet the emperor’s standards of worth.

Those who refuse… will be _removed_ and replaced with someone more worthy.

It takes only a year for the slight famine caused by the war to recede, helped along by resources confiscated from unruly former noble houses. There’s a certain sadistic feeling of satisfaction in seeing the pampered heirs of such nobles thrown out of their manors to live as the lowest of commoners, to sweep the streets and clean the sewers to earn their daily bread. And when they’ve had enough, when they beg for forgiveness for their parents’ misdeeds, only then the Emperor can be magnanimous. They may at least have their lives, poor as they are, abused as they are, spat on by those they used to rule.

Nobility cannot protect you, Edelgard tells her subjects. The very concept of “nobility” is one granted by the people, and can be stripped from them by the people’s will. By the Emperor’s will. As she suffered in her youth, the title of princess meaning nothing to those who tortured her, so too the rebels learn this harsh truth.

Many sacrifices were made to bring about this shining new world. Edelgard lays flowers on the graves of her fallen soldiers, and keeps a fresh vase of them on her desk, blue and yellow, for the graves she cannot visit.

“I saw Dimitri’s ghost,” Byleth told her, before the war had even ended.

It hadn’t shocked Edelgard then. Byleth has always been softhearted, despite what was done to her to mute her emotions. Edelgard had just continued stroking her beloved’s hair. “What did he say to you?”

“Nothing much. I think it was a dream. He had… regrets.”

Dimitri had regrets, was filled with them to bursting. He carried so much guilt that it drove him insane. It was a weakness, and one that Edelgard is glad she doesn’t share. No matter how much she wishes she could have spared more of her former classmates, there was no other way to achieve her goals. Her path was the path of least bloodshed. It just had a high cost up front.

But now the war is over. Fodlan is reunited under its rightful ruler once more, as it always should have been. As it always would have been if the church’s lies hadn’t incited rebellions and destabilized the Empire of centuries ago. But now there will be nothing but peace for centuries to come, and who knows? Perhaps in a few years she can retire quietly to live out the rest of her life with her beloved. Whether they find a cure for her or not, whether the time she has left in this world is long or short, measured in decades or months, it will be peaceful. For the first time since she donned the flame red armor and set out to cleanse the world, she can dream of a future beyond war.

Edelgard is not like Dimitri. She has no regrets, no guilt. Not like his, anyway. Not the type that would eat her up from the inside. What grief she carries is easily pushed aside on her relentless march toward the Future.

“It saddens me to see you this way, El. Have you truly lied for so long that you now believe these falsehoods yourself?”

She sits at the desk in her bedroom, dressed only in her nightgown and with her hair down, checking the script for her speech tomorrow. Tomorrow she will address the people of Enbarr of various new changes to their governance, and from there the news will be carried across all of Fodlan.

When the voice comes, she stills. Through the corners of her eyes she glances around the room, but no one is there. The voice had sounded like Dimitri, but not as she last heard him.

Shaken, she returns to her documents. New schools are to be built, to educate all the commoners. All children will be given the opportunity to read and write, and they will not have to learn it through scripture. The children’s primers of the church are to be burned, replaced with secular books of letters and numbers. And in the established schools, teachers are to renounce their faith or be stripped of their positions. The poison will not spread to the next generation.

“Ignoring me isn’t going to make me go away.”

The ghost appears in an instant, sitting on the side of her desk, bare legs dangling. It’s Dimitri as she first met him years ago, huge blue eyes and rounded cheeks.

She sighs through her nose. “Won’t it?”

“No,” he says with all the petulance of a twelve year old. “Because you’re wrong, and when you love someone you have to tell them when they’re wrong.”

“How am I wrong?” She shouldn’t, but she indulges this ghost because it’s rare for her siblings to talk back to her, and Claude has not appeared in some time.

“Yes, the nobility was corrupt. Yes, the Crest system was flawed. But we should change things gradually, from the inside! If your changes are to be effective, implementation needs to take _longer_.”

“I won’t _live_ long enough to see it if it takes longer!”

Dimitri looks at her, judging. After a few beats of silence, he says, “You’re selfish, El. You’re not doing this because you love your people. You’re doing it because you want to feel good about yourself before you die. What’s going to happen _after_? A thousand years of culture can’t be wiped away in an instant just because an emperor says so. When you’re gone, the believers will rise up from the cracks. In the best case scenario, your successors will battle them as Rhea fought back the Agarthans for centuries. In the worst, they’ll undo all you have done and plunge Fodlan into war once more.”

“And _that_ is why I will crush the Seiros faith completely!”

She slams her seal over the finished declaration.

It’s as she leans over her desk, hand trembling as it grips the seal, that there’s a quiet knocking on the door. “Come in,” she manages to mumble out.

Byleth’s face, usually unreadable, is creased in worry. “Is… something wrong?” her wife asks.

“No, nothing,” Edelgard is quick to say. “I’m merely frustrated with all the work that must be done before I can find a worthy successor.”

Byleth nods and takes a seat on the bed. Edelgard joins her shortly, and they spend the rest of their evening this way. Byleth lays her head in Edelgard’s lap, and Edelgard reads to her beloved from the books passed down in her family.

She reads her family’s secret tales, the ones she loved most as a child, and the ones that gave her strength to cut her own path through life after losing nearly all her family. She tells Byleth the full story of the War of Heroes. Of Nemesis, the great ancient hero, who with human ingenuity discovered how to craft the powerful Heroes’ Relics which were necessary for his men to stand up to Seiros’ beastly forces. And she tells the tale of Wilhelm Paul Hresvelg, legendary founder of Adrestia who united all the disorganized tribes that once roamed Fodlan, and who was eventually tricked by Seiros into quarreling with Nemesis.

As the story comes to a close, Edelgard yet again feels her purpose renewed. She knows what she must do next to secure humanity’s future. In the new textbooks of the new schools, they will refer to the recent war as the Second War of Heroes, when Byleth, the second coming of the hero, came together with herself, who walked Wilhelm’s path of unification. Together they made right what their ancestors could not.

She sleeps peacefully knowing Nemesis and Byleth’s legacies are secured. All the Black Eagles too, her precious friends, will take their place as the new Elites.

* * *

Dimitri has aged up to how he appeared in their school days.

“You should be more lenient with the church,” he says. “They do good work.”

“For the last time, their leaders weren’t human. The moral code can stay, if they want to rewrite it in secular terms, but I can’t abide _beast worship_.”

“Is that the only rhetoric you can spew? It sickens me. You have no idea how many times I heard those words spoken against Dedue and his people’s beliefs, to justify the razing of Duscur. That you would use it too, El…”

“Oh for goodness sake, foreigners aren’t transforming _beasts._ It’s not the same at all.”

“Isn’t it? You killed Seteth, who always looked after us as students. You killed Flayn, who was your classmate.”

“Seteth and Flayn as you knew them never existed. They cast illusions, they mired our minds to walk among us and mold us to their will.”

“You don’t think their love was real? They had families, and they loved. What is the definition of human, if not that?”

* * *

Progress on the schools is going well. Edelgard is in her office this time drafting another law, that Faith magic be renamed Light magic. In a fit of nostalgia, she allows herself to remember her school days, and especially when Professor Manuela had _insisted_ every student at least try to learn a basic heal spell.

Manuela is… Well, Edelgard doesn’t actually know what became of her. As citizens of the Empire, Manuela and Hanneman would have been drafted into the Imperial Army, but neither of them attempted to contact their former students. She hopes the professors found a new school to teach at, with new students to dote upon. She hopes those new students are far less troublesome than the ones who attended the Officer’s Academy.

The worst news this month is an unknown sickness spreading through the small towns north of Enbarr. Hubert has gone to investigate, but these things are common and there’s no need to fear foul play just yet.

The distinctive feel of a warp portal twists in front of her desk, and for a moment Edelgard dreads another meeting with Thales, still under the guise of Lord Arundel. She hates meeting with him while Hubert is away. Well, she hates meeting with him always, but moreso when they are alone. It brings back unpleasant memories.

A woman steps through instead. She is older, but still beautiful. As always, her gaze is somber and mannerisms demure. It has been many, many years since Edelgard saw this face. She leaps to her feet in surprise.

“M-mother?” She shuts her eyes harshly, but her sight is the same after. “No, it cannot be. Who are you? What do you want?”

The vision of her mother takes a seat on the other side of the desk. If it’s a ghost, it’s far more real than any before it. “Darling,” the woman says. “El. It’s really me.” When Edelgard says nothing, she sighs. “I’ve been watching you for years, waiting for this moment. I’m so glad we can finally work together to restore Agartha.”

Edelgard doesn’t believe her for a second. “Liar! You’ll take off that mask or I’ll rip it off!”

The _thing_ wearing her mother’s face smiles then, and in an instant her skin has turned gray and her features shifted to be just different enough. “I thought you might say that. Anselma really was one of us, though. We’re not all born killers, despite what you might think. We have family to protect too; I’m sure you understand that.”

“ _What_ do you _want_?” Edelgard has no patience for such taunts, for talk of _family_ when they killed hers. She has half a mind to cut down this dastardly wretch before another blasphemous word can come out of her mouth. Aymr is within reach, if she dashes to the wall where it rests.

“I want you to know the truth, that your mother was Agarthan. _You_ are Agarthan. My little sister was always a bit… retiring. Too meek to fight for us.” She shakes her head, the action coming across as disingenuous when paired with a sickly sweet voice. “Luckily that sorrowful look of hers was very attractive to men in power, so we planted her as a spy in your father’s court, and when her job there was done, we had her seduce King Lambert as well. Oh, how she hated both her husbands… But she and Cornelia were _such_ good friends! Did you know, they planned the Tragedy of Duscur together? It’s too bad she tried to cross us afterwards. That’s when I was forced to take her skin.”

Edelgard sinks back down into her chair, heart pounding. The blood rushing through her veins throbs against her skull. Lies, they’re all lies! Those who slither do nothing but lie and manipulate. Thales and his minions were unhappy with Cornelia’s death, and now they’re trying a new tactic to keep her under their thumb.

“Why tell me this? Why now?” she croaks out.

“Come now, my darling niece, don’t play dumb. You don’t really think you can outmaneuver us, do you? We’ve been planning everything for centuries. You’ve been one of us since we orchestrated your birth.” Her smile grows wider and more sadistic. “Yes, yes! What makes you so special? How did you survive when all your half-siblings died in the experiments? It’s not like you were always magically inclined like the Ordelia girl. We kept you alive, you specifically, first to use you to keep your mother focused on the mission, and then because you responded the best to the mental experiments.”

“Mental--! How _dare_ you insinuate such things. I am your Emperor!”

“There’s no hope for your little rebellion. Adrestia, too, shall fall. In it’s place, Agartha will rise again, the one true first empire of Fodlan. I did love my sister, truly. But a few lives are nothing for the sake of the cause.”

Edelgard really lunges for the axe then, and cleaves it down the chair where the woman had been sitting. She’s too late to stop the warp, and is left with splintered wood and an explosion of down feathers falling in time to the staccato notes of smug laughter.

* * *

Dimitri appears again, covered in blood and grime, hunched over and screaming. “You took everything from me! Duscur happened because of you, because our mother… Our mother chose to kill everyone for you!” His shouting tapers off into incoherent groans. He rambles and rages, overcome with his delusions.

It’s pitiful, but there’s nothing she can say that will get through to him. She tried while he was alive, but he refused to listen to reason.

Claude appears too, and he sidles up to her until their shoulders brush.

Edelgard sighs. “So you’ve come to lay Duscur at my feet as well? I was not the one who committed those atrocities. I refuse to apologize for things I have not done. Not Duscur, not Remire, not any of that.”

Claude shakes his head. “Didn’t anybody ever tell you that you’re judged by the company you keep? You allied with evil forces and fought at their side, yet we were supposed to think better of you just because you said so?”

“Didn’t you? You were smart enough to see through my plan and agree with my ideals.”

“So I did! I thought I knew you; I thought the Flame Emperor was an act! I thought surely my friend Edelgard would want to scheme together. And…” Claude lowers his head and disappears.

Dimitri’s wailing stops too. He melts into a mass of black ichor and disappears into her rug.

* * *

Edelgard feels guilty that she doesn’t tell Byleth right away. She tells only Hubert about the visitation once he returns from his reconnaissance. The truth is, no one was there to witness the meeting, and the stress of ruling is taking its toll. Edelgard isn’t absolutely sure she didn’t just imagine it all in the way that she has distorted versions of Claude and Dimitri judging every aspect of her life from the corner of her eye.

Hubert believes her, of course. He’s very concerned about the mysterious slither agent, and his scowl turns especially dark when she mentions the part about Agartha being the true first empire. Something’s missing there, some piece of knowledge she doesn’t have, but Hubert’s not ready to disclose it, and so she doesn’t pry.

The news Hubert brings is dire as well. The disease is now a full-on plague, decimating entire villages like Remire. Also like Remire, the infected turn violent and beastly at the last stage of the disease, and some even completing the transformation into demonic beasts if they survive long enough. But unlike Remire, where the villagers were all exposed to the tainted beast blood of the children of the goddess, this disease spreads on its own.

According to Hubert, there are similarities in the early stages to another outbreak that hit Faerghus many years ago, and which was cured by Cornelia, prompting her rise to power. Lethargy, body aches, vomiting… He suspects she unleashed the plague then, and took credit for merely providing the antidote to her own poison. This new outbreak looks to be a combination of the two previous experiments. He leaves again, to scour the ruins of Arianrhod for Cornelia’s notes, if she left any.

In Hubert’s absence, Caspar, who has been elevated to his father’s former position of Minister of Military Affairs, brings her the news himself, that the troops they sent to help Holst Goneril hold the Locket have gone silent.

“I sent some soldiers to investigate,” Caspar says, unusually grim. “Only one man came back. He was carrying this letter.”

It is a declaration of secession; a declaration of war. The lords of northern and eastern Leicester, consisting of Houses Goneril and Edmund, along with the remnants of Houses Riegan and Daphnel and the semi-autonomous region of Kupala, have split from the rest of the former Alliance. The rebels demand autonomy, and are willing to defend their supposed borders with the aid of Almyran troops. The parchment bears the Riegan seal, and it is signed by a Tiana von Riegan, perhaps some distant cousin, proclaiming herself the new Duchess Riegan.

Edelgard has to fight not to rip the letter to shreds. “History is repeating itself, the cowards. Leicester waits for Faerghus to soften us up, and only then do they rebel.”

What’s worrisome is that the military forces of the former Alliance came out of the war the most intact. The Kingdom’s knights were nearly entirely destroyed, and the Empire’s forces suffered significant losses as well, since they were the instigators and as such participated in every battle.

Caspar brightens up just a bit, though his smile isn’t as broad as it used to be. “Well, Faerghus has been successfully quelled this time, so maybe things will work out with Leicester, too. They only have half the lords of the former Alliance, anyway, and their base is all the way to Fodlan’s Throat! We’re still holding Riegan and Daphnel lands, we’ve got troops patrolling Derdriu. Gloucester, Ordelia, and the lesser houses are still on our side. That takes out the brunt of their mages. They can’t make up for that with _Almyrans_. Those bastards don’t even speak our language!”

“True, it will be more difficult for them to organize their forces with such a communication barrier. But I still can’t understand why they would be so quick to ally with Almyra, especially House Goneril. They’ve been enemies for centuries.”

As Edelgard has her meeting with Caspar, Claude peeks curiously over her shoulder. She doesn’t address him until Caspar has gone and left her with her own thoughts.

“I had to kill you. We’ve established this. If I’d left you alive, there’s no guarantee that you wouldn’t have come back to cause trouble in the future.”

Claude stretches, bringing his arms up behind his head. “Right, right. Too bad trouble’s coming for you anyway. Thing is, I told you to spare Hilda. I begged you. There was a reason for that. There was always a reason for everything I did.”

Against her better judgment, she reads the letter once more, seeking answers. Holst Goneril had fallen ill after Hilda’s death, but still sent for the Imperial army to protect Fodlan’s Locket in his stead during the war. Edelgard thought this meant his duty to Fodlan was greater than any personal grudge he could have had against the Empire; she thought it meant he was logical enough not to blame them for Hilda’s demise, especially since Hilda had been given a choice. It was admirable enough that she had allowed him to continue governing Goneril lands.

But now it seems he changed his mind. It seems he opened all of Goneril territory to the Almyrans, who are camped there now. Why?

“I guess the attack was just a misunderstanding. Almyra has no quarrel with Leicester anymore, or it didn’t when I was in charge. They were coming to get revenge for me, but Holst didn’t know it at first. If you could’ve just reined in your pride and let Hilda go, Holst would’ve put her under house arrest and tiptoed around you like a meek little lamb to protect her. He has no incentive to be so cautious now.”

“I should have let your retainer live? Your loyal _second-in-command_ , who would never stop seeking revenge if I’d let her go? How stupid do you think I am? It was war!”

“A war you started! We would’ve helped if you’d been strong enough to trust us. It could have been all three of us against your true enemies, and mark my words, _they’re_ coming too.”

“That’s not true. I couldn’t trust either of you. You were always scheming, Claude, and the church broke Dimitri. Rhea was a true enemy, and you both took her side even after finding out what she was.”

Claude scoffs. “And Rhea has been the only thing keeping your _other_ true enemy in check for a millennium. She’s gone now, you saw to that. Congratulations, you’ve fallen into their trap.”

* * *

As the plague spreads, so do rumors of bird-masked priests in dark robes traveling the countryside offering cures. The price of the antidote is your freedom. They snatch “saved” children away from their families for unknown purposes. To those they do not trust, the medicines they give turn out to be poisons.

To the east, riots break out in Derdriu. The imperial patrol as well as the spies seeded throughout the aquatic city report back to Edelgard that Claude is quickly rising to martyr status. News has spread to the commoners of their former Duke’s last words before his execution, that he begged for his people to be spared. His people had adored him, and in their grief they take to the streets.

At first the protests were nonviolent, but the imperial soldiers stationed in Derdriu were not familiar with the customs of the former Alliance, and they responded as they would if commoners in Enbarr had spoken against the emperor: they beat the protesters and publicly humiliated them to break up the crowds.

But the people of Leicester, and especially Derdriu, had developed a culture of public debate. Their government for centuries had been based on lords convening at a roundtable, shouting and arguing and compromising until one idea prevailed over others. It was a notoriously slow form of government, but it was a point of pride for them. Even the commoners were permitted to voice their opinions without fear of punishment, and the overwhelming opinion now was, “We bow to no king, we bow to no emperor!” Such disdain for monarchy among the commoners is nearly impossible to comprehend for Adrestians. Edelgard’s informants are taken aback by how corrupted the culture of Leicester has become in the time it was apart from the Empire.

In southwestern Leicester, the Empire-allied lords are finding it hard to control their people as well, because it’s the commoners leading the protests and not the northeastern lords, even if they had sown the seeds. They shout against the abolition of the church. They condemn Lord Gloucester for professing piety when it was convenient, and just as quickly abandoning it when it was not. Lord Ordelia, his noble house in ruins and grieving the loss of his only remaining heir, had retired to his estate and refused to address the issue at all, letting his people run amok.

But the worst of it is the growing pro-Almyra faction. Along Fodlan’s Throat and in certain wards of Derdriu and the other large cities, people are beginning to openly speak Almyran. They had been there all along, people who came from the border villages and who had hidden their mother tongue in their homes. “Almyra came to Derdriu’s aid when we were attacked,” they say. “They fought and died for us. Almyra never attacked the Locket in the five years Claude von Riegan was Sovereign Duke.”

“I think it’s nice,” Dimitri says, a child again, sitting primly on the couch of Edelgard’s office. “I wish Duscur and Sreng could get along with the Kingdom like that, too.”

Edelgard ignores him. The plague or the protests. She has to choose one to personally deal with.

* * *

Byleth’s heartbeat is soothing. Steady. Edelgard presses her ear to it and lets it calm her until she’s ready to explain. She tells Byleth everything because they are kindred spirits and they should never have to hide anything from each other again.

“I love you,” Byleth says.

“Why?”

“Do I need a reason? My heart beats because of you.”

Edelgard lets out a shuddering breath. “I find it hard to love myself these days, but with you by my side, I will never lack for courage. Let us go east once more.”

Healers who are unfit for combat will stay back to mitigate the effects of the plague and hold it off from spreading into Enbarr. But the rest of the army will head for Leicester. They will fight off the rebel lords and cut off the protests. The former Alliance’s lax governance has let their people grow too bold. It was a mistake on her part, a mistake made due to her desire to minimize bloodshed, to let Leicester off so easily, she knows that now. Some people just don’t know what’s best for themselves and cannot be reasoned with until they are defeated in a show of force.

Hubert, also, has uncovered the location of the Agarthan base in that direction. It’s time for her silent war to end.

* * *

The plague nips at their heels as they travel. They pick up more troops along the way, and the soldiers posted in the territories north of Enbarr all confirm that the populace has begun to panic. Their morale is low. The march is slower than when the emperor traveled with a small elite force, but they are up against the full might of a foreign nation this time. The strike force would not be sufficient in dealing with a threat this size.

The loss of soldiers in these territories contributes to the panic, for now the villages have lost their peacekeeping force and their protection against the beasts that spawn from the infected. It’s a hard choice, but if the Almyrans and rebel lords were to reclaim Leicester, they could use that position to launch attacks on the rest of the Empire while it’s weak from disease.

A week passes. They cross Gronder Field, which is just as they remember it from their academy days. Dorothea, who has never seemed to recover from her melancholy during the war, bursts into tears for her fallen classmates. She tries her best to stifle her sobs into her shawl, but her misery is plain to see.

Morale sinks even lower.

In another week, they’ve passed the Great Bridge of Myrrdin and begun to pick up loyal troops from Gloucester and Ordelia. They march straight for the Throat, enemy wyverns visible in the distance, but before they can get there…

Beasts. Demonic beasts, hordes of them, converge upon the imperial army.

Dark robed mages accompany them, some wearing the bird-like masks. With each bite of a beast, plague spreads and a new beast claws out of the skin of the infected.

Edelgard fights desperately, with more urgency than she has ever felt in her life. Aymr slices and smashes. Byleth’s Sword of the Creator snakes in between the gaps to finish the ones still standing. They fight and fight, but the beasts are neverending.

Caspar charges in front of his battalion for a close-range flurry of blows, gauntlets striking over and over, but he’s _too_ close and there are shouts of warning but it’s too late--

The beast sinks its teeth into his shoulder, pumping black bile into his veins. He falls, screaming, writhing, clutching the wound. The beast lopes off to find another victim even as Caspar’s gauntlets groan and burst under the pressure of elongating claws. Black scales grow up from his neck and across his face.

Dorothea and Linhardt rush forth, healing spells on their tongues. But while the magic closes his wound, it does nothing to beat back the infection that has already set in. Caspar lunges at Dorothea, sinking his new fangs into her neck, choking off her cries as she, too, is infected.

The black-robed mages close in on Edelgard and her closest companions, waving censers that spew sweet-smelling smoke. The last thing she hears are the words, “Capture the ones with Crests.”

And Hubert, choking on the mist, saying, “Sorry, I’m so sorry I failed you. Your Majesty, I’m so sorry…”

* * *

She wakes bound in chains and surrounded by those who slither. Upon noticing this, her siblings start up their tortured wailing once more. This very scene is how the Flame Emperor was born in the heart of a helpless princess, and now… Well. At least it’s not a dungeon.

They are atop a plateau. The field they were marching through is visible from this height. To the east, Almyran wyverns descend from the mountains in droves. Leicester cavalry and infantry accompany their charge.

To the west, an army of demonic beasts made from the defiled bodies of the imperial army. The two forces clash in the field below. The grass of the field has long been trampled, and the surrounding brush set on fire. The sky tints red with sunset, yet the slaughter continues with no signs of stopping.

Edelgard is brought back to her own predicament when one of the mages removes her mask. The face of Anselma von Arundel greets her once more, smiling.

“Hail the Great King of Legend, Nemesis!” she calls. “Hail his Ten Elites!”

The other mages lift up their arms and cheer. That’s when Edelgard sees who else is sharing the plateau with them – a line of gray-skinned, dead-eyed beings. The corpse-like army is lead by a huge man holding… the Sword of the Creator.

“No…”

“Yes, my dear,” the false Anselma says. She pats Edelgard on the cheek. “What luck that so many of your companions bear Crests! You’ll make fine beasts for the King of Liberation. Let me show you.”

Bernadetta screams when they pull her up. “No no no, please no, no!”

A corrupted black fragment of a Crest stone is shoved into her chest and her screams grow shrill until she is shrieking and shrieking and _growing_ and _growling_. And where Bernadetta was, there is now a giant demonic beast as big as any they have seen and fought. The beast roars as it leaps down into the fray, a portion of the corpse army following in its wake.

They pull up Ferdinand and Linhardt. There are tear tracks running down Ferdie’s face, and his lip is bloodied as if he’d been biting it to keep his weeping silent. And Lin, poor Lin, he sighs and shudders and is utterly limp as they manhandle him. All the fight has left him.

The same black stones are shoved into their chests, and then they’re tossed down the hill to transform as they fall.

Edelgard watches and commits it all to memory. It’s the least she can do for her friends after they gave up everything to follow her. She hasn’t looked away at all, and she won’t until it’s her turn.

The chains are restrictive, but they’re tied close enough that Edelgard is able to wiggle her hand out for Byleth’s. They’re the only ones left now, and they reach for each other the only way they know how. Byleth is silent, but her fingers twined with Edelgard’s are a warm comfort.

“You both bear the Crest of Flames,” the mage says. “You’ll make great pets for Nemesis.”

Upon hearing his name called, the corpse of the ancient king stomps forth, ready for his charge. Edelgard’s heart sinks even further into her stomach. She feels as Claude did before his execution, that somehow she’d read everything so very wrong. “I’m sorry,” she whispers. To Byleth, to her friends, to Dimitri and Claude…

Their hands remain clasped as they are thrown down the hill, but Edelgard’s other hand comes free. As she soars, the ghosts appear one last time. Dimitri and Claude fall with her, extending their hands. She reaches for them, finally.

She reaches and reaches.

**Author's Note:**

> “Tell me straight out, I call on you--answer me: imagine that you yourself are building the edifice of human destiny with the object of making people happy in the finale, of giving them peace and rest at last, but for that you must inevitably and unavoidably torture just one tiny creature, that same child who was beating her chest with her little fist, and raise your edifice on the foundation of her unrequited tears--would you agree to be the architect on such conditions? Tell me the truth."
> 
> "No, I would not agree," Alyosha said softly.
> 
> "And can you admit the idea that the people for whom you are building would agree to accept their happiness on the unjustified blood of a tortured child, and having accepted it, to remain forever happy?"
> 
> "No, I cannot admit it.”
> 
> \-- Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov


End file.
